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''gauntlet'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''gauntlet'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250816012120-00-⌔

gauntlet - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

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gauntlet (plural gauntlets)

  • Protective armor for the hands, formerly thrown down as a challenge to combat.
    • ✤ Coordinate term: manifer
    • ✤ The hands were defended by Gauntlets, these were sometimes of chain mail, but oftener of small plates of iron rivetted together, in imitation of the lobster’s tail, so as to yield every motion of the hand, some gauntlet s inclosed the whole hand, as in a box or case, others were divided into fingers, each finger consisting of eight or ten separate pieces, the inside gloved with buff leather, some of these reached no higher than the wrist, others to the elbow; the latter were stiled long armed gauntlet s: many of them are to be seen in the Tower; for a representation of one of them, see plate 26, fig 6.1
  • A long glove covering the wrist.
    • ✤ The hawk no longer darts forth from the gauntlet to soar through the air for his prey.2
    • ✤ Solventproof rubber gauntlets under solventproof sleeves closed at the wrists should be worn.3
  • (nautical) A rope on which hammocks or clothes are hung for drying.
  • (medicine) An eruption of pellagra on the hands.

Noun

gauntlet (plural gauntlets)

  • (archaic) Two parallel rows of attackers who strike at a criminal as punishment.
  • A simultaneous attack from two or more sides.
  • (figuratively) Any challenging, difficult, or painful ordeal, often one performed for atonement or punishment.
    • ✤ [John] Winthrop ran the gantlet of daily slights from his neighbors.4
  • (video games) A fight against swarms of relatively minor enemies in the form of multiple waves, often but not always preceding a boss.
  • (rail transport) Overlapping parallel rail tracks; either to allowing passage through a narrow opening in each direction without switching, or to allow vehicles of a larger gauge to pass through a station without hitting the platforms.

Etymology 1

From Middle English gauntelett, gantlett, a borrowing from Old French gantelet (“gauntlet worn by a knight in armor, a token of one’s personality or person, and symbolizing a challenge”), diminutive of gant (“glove”), a borrowing from Frankish ﹡want (“glove; mitten”) and reinforced by Medieval Latin wantus (“glove”) itself borrowed from the former, from Proto-Germanic ﹡wantuz (“glove; mitten”). Cognate with Dutch want (“mitten; shroud”), German Low German Want (“shroud”), Danish vante (“mitten”), Swedish vante (“glove; mitten”), Faroese vøttur (“glove; mitten”).

Pronunciation

  • enPR: gônt’lət, IPA: /ˈɡɔːnt.lət/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Etymology 2

Modified, under the influence of etymology 1, from gantlope, from Swedish gatlopp (“passageway”), from Old Swedish gata (“lane”) + lopp (“course”), from löpa (“to run”)

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Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, pages 22–23: ↩

  2. 1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 40: ↩

  3. 1969, Lance William DeStwolinski, Occupational Health in the Construction Industry, page 235: ↩

  4. 1858, John Gorham Palfrey, chapter XII, in History of New England during the Stuart Dynasty. […], volume I, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, and Company, →OCLC, book I, page 481: ↩

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Secondary

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